Archive for the ‘Culture and Wine’ Category

Do Americans drink more during moments of cultural upheaval? Do they reach for the bottle when its culture and people are ignited and roiled by doubt, consternation and the unknown? We know Americans drink more when they collectively celebrate. Just ask beer producers around Independence Day. Talk to wine retailers about their sales in advance of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Query sparkling wine producers about sales on December 31. As we watch the Charlottesville debacle and tragedy play out, are we examining…

If you make a living in the wine industry, how ought you feel about this headline: “A new study from OutCo and Monocle Research shows 51% of millennials in California will replace alcohol with marijuana.” Further down in the story that ran in the form of a press release we get this nugget: “Millennials will be more open to diversity in their consumption of recreational substances than older generations, with more than 50% of them substituting cannabis for alcohol altogether….

The American system of alcohol regulations is not merely broken, it has become a parody of the idea of control. What once was supposed to be a post-Prohibition system of regulations to assure the country did not fall back into a free-for-all alcohol market has morphed over the years into a chaotic collection of regulations and laws based on the what the highest bidder wants, on the principle of rent-seeking by the most powerful and politically connected entities in the…

How hard to you have to love your pet and how jacked up on cash do you have to be to spend $12.00 on a small bottle of “Wine for Pets”? I’m thinking a little too much, in both cases. Yet, I read that on the classic television hit “Shark Tank” Kevin O’Leary paid $100,000 to be a 20% owner in Apollo Peak, a wine-for-pets company. According to CNBC: “The wines — with clever names like MosCATo, Pinot MEOW and…

Want to increase the size of your bank account? Consider drinking and driving. According to the annual Wealth Report: “Investment grade wine finally knocked classic cars off the winner’s podium in the 2016 Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index (KFLII). The Knight Frank Fine Wine Icons Index, compiled for us by Wine Owners, recorded blistering growth of 24% in 2016, compared with a relatively lacklustre 9% increase in the value of the HAGI Top Index, which tracks the performance of the world’s most desirable classic cars….